


Prologue

by paladin_cleric_mage



Series: I Want to Break Free [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-06-26 19:11:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19774600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paladin_cleric_mage/pseuds/paladin_cleric_mage
Summary: A preview of the full work, "I Want to Break Free", now in progress.





	1. The Loser

If she is gone,

who am I?

I have never belonged to myself. 

Time kills, but I'm still living,

and I can't escape the weight of her absence.

He tells me it'll be okay,

my family will be fine.

I will be fine.

He promises this through tears I thought

he wasn't capable of 

crying,

and I know it is a lie.


	2. The Fool

The crying was

a chorus of raw voices

unheard and

unwanted.

  
Who lost their voice first?

The girl who lost a brother, or 

the girl who lost a father, or

the woman who lost a friend?

He knew none of them and felt

far removed,

but he was there, year after year

a castaway as unwanted as the cries of these

victims.


	3. The Forgotten

See the house for what it has become:

a cage for a family that sits facedown on the mantel.

See her room for what it looked like,

before a girl's belongings became artifacts in a museum.

See the numb husband, who has not one tool to help him

pick up the pieces of his grieving wife.

See the boy who brought this upon them,

the boy with no one to turn to,

and no right to cry.


	4. The Martian

What to do with a boy  
who has never learned to cry?

He has never been asked to describe his feelings,  
nor to name the egregious ways life has wronged him.

And were he taught the art of self-expression,  
where would he begin?

His brain, it won't work like it used to.


	5. The Queen

I can help him while he heals,

I can help him heal.

I can be healed by the help of others.

I can be helped, I can heal.

I can help myself heal,

I can heal beside him.

I cannot be healed by him.

I cannot heal him.

It is not my fault.


	6. The Matriarch

Are they really lucky to be alive?

How do you look at a child and tell them

someone no longer exists?

What is existence?

A corporeal form, or the soul that lies therein?

And how do you deliver the line?

_He's gone._

_She was one of them._

_They are not coming back_.

These losses belong to the mother, too, 

but she does not own them.

The survivors share the gravity equally,

pinned to a planet intent on destroying

every fibre of their mortal being.

Imagine the children-- that's all they are--

bloody, screaming, covered in their own vomit,

all because of what you told them.

Are they really lucky to be alive?


	7. The Visitor

Everything good is ruined by men.


	8. The Dreamer

How long have I wasted,

jealous of her for getting to kiss

the boy that I love?

No more wasted time, she trusts me.

This girl I barely know.

Does anybody know her?

How well can you know someone who doesn't know themself?

Who grew up without a name?

She was born in a lab. 

All the things she never had, she got them,

and lost them all at once.

There is no thing in the world that has been fair to her.

But now there could be.


	9. The Rocketman

How do you handle loss when it isn't yours?

His life wasn't devastated, but

the people he loves were taken away from him

because of the absolute 

destruction of theirs.


End file.
